The Quest for Quartzite; or How I Learned to Stop Loaning My Books

   I do not loan my books. Ever.  Here is why.

   Before I was a full time writer, before I was a school librarian, I was an "extension" librarian in a fifteen branch library system in rural Mississippi. "Extension librarian" meant I was a bookmobile librarian, minus the bookmobile. I drove the library station wagon. I hit every branch once a month, running children's programs, and muling in new books for the collections.  Although I was not officially a children's librarian, working with kids was my favorite part of the job. My least favorite was the limited book collection. The description "rural Mississippi" says a lot about our book budget.

    Before the Internet, before cable TV, even before satellite dishes, a good many of my patrons had no electronic access to the outside world, unless you counted AM radio. AM radio consisted of farm prices, obituaries, and what was on special at the Piggly Wiggly.

    These kids read. A lot. The libraries were teeny-tiny, wedged into old gas stations, storefronts or the back room of the Farm Bureau or City Hall. My pint-sized patrons had read everything that wasn't nailed down. To supplement  local pickin's, they were allowed to request books from The State Library Commission in Jackson, five books at a time.  I came back from my branch visits with stacks and stacks of loan request cards.  Between visits, the librarians would mail me more requests.  It appeared that not even The Library Commission could satisfy their need for books. Their love of reading gladdened the heart of this newly-minted graduate librarian.  So I did the unthinkable.

    I loaned my own books. They were checked  out through the library system as "a special loan" so I always knew where the book was.  To their credit, those kids living out in Chalybeate and Blue Mountain and Hickory Flat appreciated the effort, and took care of my books better than I did.

    Word circulated that the "Library Lady" could get you whatever you wanted...which made me sound like a literary dope dealer. If you needed a good book report book, she could figure out what you wanted and get it for you.  My kids grew older and moved into high school, and still they were reading! How could I possibly let them down?

     The last year I worked for the public library, my favorite YA book was William Hogan's The Quartzite Trip.  YA literature was a whole 'nother animal in the early '80's. Mostly YA novels were "problem" novels. The main character was anorexic. Or an alcoholic. Or on drugs (we stopped replacing all the library copies of Go Ask Alice that mysteriously "disappeared") Or schizophrenic. (We stopped replacing I Never Promised You a Rose Garden as well.) The Quartzite Trip was so different.  In a sentence, the book is about a high school geology class field trip to the desert in1962.  The tension came from the interpersonal relationships of the class, and their mystical, quasi-hippie (for 1962) teacher. I thought it was great. I thought it was the bomb. I was first in line when the book came out as a paperback.

   Then I got careless with my loaning. I started loaning books to the teens in my town, not going through the library system but as one friend to another. (I was only four or five years older than some of these students.) M--I-S-T-A-K-E.

   One day I went to loan out Quartzite for the 100th time...and it wasn't there. I knew who had it. They'd had it for over a year. In fact, the student had graduated from high school and moved on to the state university. That was OK. His family lived down the street. I'd just go reclaim my book.

    His parents looked at me as if I had two heads. "Bob (not his real name) read a book? Are you sure? Well, you can look around his room..."  I did. I found any number of things that I am sure his parents did not know were lurking in there, but my book was not one of them.

     I hoped he had taken it to college with him (yeah, right!) When he toddled home for Thanksgiving, and I asked, I got a blank look. Finally "Bob" admitted that he "thought" he "lost" it at high school. But hey, he'll pay me the 2.95 (!!!) to replace it.  I took his 2.95, and discovered that the nearest bookstore (50 miles away) no longer had it. I was ticked. I was miffed. I was mad. For the next twenty years I searched in vain for a copy of The Quartzite Trip.   I met a lot of other people, also trying to find the same book, because it had been their favorite in high school.  ("Man, that book was trippin'.")

    Flash forward to the Era of Online Book Buying. I discovered that The Quartzite Trip was out-of-print. The "good news" was that it was available...for an unseemly amount of money...from an out-of-print bookpirate...I mean bookseller. "Bob's" two ninety-five wouldn't cover shipping and insurance, let along the actual price of the book.

    I caved. I paid. I re-read my new/old friend. While it doesn't have the timeless quality of say, Charlotte's Web, it holds up better than any number of books of the same vintage, some of which are required reading in the Atlanta public high schools.  The Quartzite Trip paperback is on the shelf I  reserve for my signed first editions (even though it is only a "good quality used copy" of unknown edition.)

   And that, dear fellow writers and readers, is why, if you ask to borrow one of my books, I will say no, if you ask to borrow a book. Politely, to be sure, but a definite no. I would sooner loan you a lung or a a kidney.  Those come in pairs.

     Don't forget to enter our current giveaway for a copy of Nancy Cavanaugh's debut middle grade novel This Journal Belongs to Ratchet (Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky. See Esther's student success story
for details.

    Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

Now Where Did Those Books Go?

Last week, Jeanne Marie kicked off Children's Book Week by introducing our series of posts about beloved children's books we've lost and miss. Before I share my own lost-book story, I want to congratulate the winners of the Sixth Annual Children's Choice Book Awards. According to this press release, over 1,000,000 votes were cast! How cool is that? You can see the list of finalists and winners here.

Now my lost-book story is nowhere near as intriguing as April's. (If you haven't read her post yet, go do so now. I'll wait.) My story starts some years back, when I created a new one-day workshop for College of DuPage called "Writing for Children and Young Adults: From Goodnight Moon to Harry Potter," designed to introduce students to the field of writing for children and teens. As part of the class, I planned to give an overview of the "ages and stages" of children's literature, sharing examples of a variety of genres and formats, classics and contemporary works.

Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon was one of my son's favorite picture books as a child, especially at bedtime. We read the marvelously lyrical, calming text so many times that I memorized it. But when I went to prepare for the class, I couldn't find our copy anywhere. It wasn't in my son's bookcase (he was away at college); it wasn't in his closet; it wasn't in my office. I finally gave up and borrowed a copy from the public library to use in my class.

I taught the class multiple times, and each time I looked for our copy of Goodnight Moon. No luck. Finally, my husband reminded me that I had packed away some of my son's books and baby things in a box that sits in the attic of our garage. Not wanting to ask my husband to drag out the box, I bought a used, paperback copy of Goodnight Moon for class. If my son eventually has children of his own, we'll get that box down from the attic. When we do, I'm hoping to find that it contains not only Goodnight Moon, but also another Margaret Wise Brown/Clement Hurd classic I've been missing for many years--The Runaway Bunny, the story of "a bunny's imaginary game of hide-and-seek and the lovingly steadfast mother who finds him every time." As a first-time mom, reading that book to my son was my way of saying that I would always be there for him. But even now I'm not sure who found the book more comforting, my son or me.

By the way, in case any of you who live in the Chicago area are interested, I'll be teaching my workshop "Writing for Children and Young Adults: From Goodnight Moon to Harry Potter" at College of DuPage again this summer. See my website for details.  And I'm thinking it may be time to update the class name, perhaps to "Writing for Children and Young Adults: From Goodnight Moon to Hunger Games." Or if you have any other suggestions, let me know. :-)

And don't forget to enter our current giveaway for a chance to win an autographed copy of Nancy Cavanaugh's debut novel for middle-graders, This Journal Belongs to Ratchet (Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky). See Esther's Student Success Story interview with Nancy for details.

When you're done, head on over to Jama's Alphabet Soup for today's Poetry Friday round-up.

Happy writing!
Carmela

Searching for Lost Books from Childhood ~ and Happy Poetry Friday!

Howdy, Campers!

Happy Poetry Friday, which the indefatigable
Ed Decaria is hosting--thank you, Ed!
~ my poem is below ~

And Happy Children's Book Week!

Jeanne Marie introduced our current topic: In honor of Children’s Book Week, share the title of the book we wish we still had or are sorry we loaned (and never got back) or one we (god forbid) threw away.

Heavens to Betsy! The search for my cherished book turned into a detective story.

The first thing I did was to ask God...errr...Google for the title of the book about a surprise birthday party for an old woman named Lisette.  Bello, her dog, directs the other animals while Lizette is at the market--he tells the goats to get apples, the ducks to get candles, etc. He and Lisette's two cats (Molly and...Ruly?) bake a bundt cake that burns on top, so they put powdered sugar on it at the last minute to hide the burned part. 

But who was the marvelous author/illustrator and what was the name of the book????

In the course of my search, I found a site called Old Children's Books which has a page called "Looking for a Book?"

I searched and searched and searched...with binoculars, with a flashlight, with a light on my miner's helmet...

(me...but my search was not as grim as pictured)

Finally, I remembered that at the end of the book was a little kitten. And I remembered that the author/illustrator wrote another book about him. In fact, the cat's name was the title of the other book. So if I could just remember the name of the cat...it was...Pitchie!

But I couldn't find a book called Pitchie. Or Pitchy. Stumbling down the corridors of the internet, bumping into walls, I finally found the other book! It was called PITSCHI (published in 1948). I now knew the name of the author/illustrator: Hans Fischer. Which meant I was close to finding the book I was actually looking for!

But first, let's take a detour. Click here to enjoy Hans Fischer's fantastic lithographs in Pitschi "the kitten who always wanted to be something else. A sad story, but one which ends well."

All the same characters are in the book I have been looking for...and now I can plug in Hans' name and come up with THE BOOK--right?

Yes! On Worldcat.org I found it--The Birthday: a Merry Tale with Many Pictures (1954)! Worldcat summarizes the story: "In a clearing in the forest lived old Lisette with her animals. On her seventy-sixth birthday, Lisette went off to the village, and while she was gone the animals prepared a wonderful birthday surprise for her."

This is the book from my childhood that still makes my heart sing.

With all the searching, I learned a few things about my good friend Hans from Children's Books and Their Creators, edited by Anita Silvey. He was Swiss, he lived from 1909-1958 (only 49 years?). And he studied under the artist Paul Klee who taught him how to use color. No wonder I fell in love with Fischer's style--I love Klee!

Klee said, "It is not my task to reproduce appearances...for that there is the photographic plate. I want to reach the heart."

And isn't that what we want from books we read...and those we create? (Actually, I wouldn't mind if large corporations took that as their company motto...)

Legendary editor Margaret McElderry discovered his work, bought the US rights to Pitschi, and went on to publish his other books, including The Birthday.

So here's my song to Hans Fischer and The Birthday.

SEARCHING FOR A BOOK
by April Halprin Wayland

What's the title?
Can't remember.

And the plot?
It was so tender…

Why is this your favorite book?
It lit a spark, it fanned an ember…

The book was in her skin, her cells,
she turned each page and oh! the smell…

At every page
I looked and listened,

the little kitten on a mission,
delicately, in pastel.

He was drawn and he was written
to cast a purring lifetime spell.

What's the title?
Can't remember.

And the plot?
It was so tender…

Why is this your favorite book?
It lit a spark, it fanned an ember…

poem & drawing © 2013 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

What's the book you wish you still owned?  Why not write a poem about it?

Remember that our blogiversary contest runs through May 19th--there's still time to be a winner!
See Carmela's post for all the details.

P.S: Take a moment to read Esther's post, below, featuring the wonderful poet and author, Holly Thompson, her newest verse novel...and her fab writing exercise. Thank you!

by April Halprin Wayland, who is grateful that you've read to the end ~ :-)

BEWARE OF BOOKS! Books that have kidnapped us, a poem for Poetry Friday & a question for you

xxx

Howdy and Happy Poetry Friday!  There's a teeny tiny Writing Workout and a not-so-teeny poem below!

A recent School Library Journal article has inspired TeachingAuthors to chat with you about the books that have most influenced us. 

That article introduced us to Bookprints. Run by Scholastic, its full name is You Are What You Read; it's sort of a FaceBook for readers. 

Upon registering, I discovered a few glitches to Bookprints' wonderful universe.  I couldn't figure out how to sign on as an author (help, anyone?) and, on strict orders of my financial advisor (aka my husband) I never give out my birth year.

So I signed in with a different birth year.  I must say, I look remarkably young for a 109-year-old.  : ^ )

The first thing it asks you (after rudely inquiring about your birth year) is to list the five most influential books in your life.  Here is my list:

A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
As I wrote when listing my five favorite poetry books, an older teen gave this one to me on my 13th birthday. I was thrilled she thought I would like these poems. I memorized the poem, DOG and choreographed a dance about it for my modern dance class...I even wore my dog's collar!  (Of course, those were the days I painted a flower on my cheek each morning to match my outfit...and painted Twiggy lashes on my eyes.)

Roget's English Thesaurus by Peter Roget
When poems began pouring out of me in my teens, this book was like having an external hard drive. It was my late-night writing partner. These days I use an online thesaurus.

Rhyming Dictionary
Actually, I adored the Capricorn Rhyming Dictionary which is no longer in print.  These days I use an online rhyming dictionary.  Like the thesaurus, this book was my writing partner--or maybe better, it was my dance partner. It expanded what I could say in rhyme, made me feel smarter and made rhyming even more of a pleasure.

Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry; L. Galantiere (Translator)
This is the autobiography of the author of The Little Prince. My mother checked it out of the library for me when I was ten or twelve...it had been one of her favorites. It's translated from French; the language is beautiful. It's also spiritual and full of adventure. The cover of this edition says it won the National Book Award and is a National Geographic Top Ten Adventure Book of All Time.  Here's a quote from the New York Times review: "A beautiful book, a brave book, a book that should be read against the confusion of the world."

 

Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
My all-time favorite children's book. It showed me wild possibilities.  It continues to influence me, teaching that we can (and do) create our own lives.

Here's a book-ish poem for you (inspired by a dream!) on Poetry Friday. I started writing it more than a year ago and worked on today.  Would you like to read the first draft and today's draft?  All poems are a work in progress, I think.  I like the first version for its seriousness and the last version for its humor.  Which do you prefer?

first draft -- 7-19-09

untitled
by April Halprin Wayland

I bring home library books
on little book feet.

One is shy,
padding away quietly while I am busy,
hiding under a chair.

One is loud,
talkative, chattering up a storm—
I have to close it to catch my breath.

One picks me—
pulls me in, and before I realize it,
has kidnapped me completely.

It tries to leave the house
with me in it’s grasp
I have to brace myself against the door frame
hold on as tightly as possible,

I have to want to stay here in this house
or it will take me
take me,
take me away

and I may never find my way back.

latest draft:

BEWARE OF BOOKS!

by April Halprin Wayland

I bring home loads of library books
once or twice a week.
And every single one of them has curious little book feet.

Here’s a book that’s LOUD!  It’s wild!
Leaping off tables!  Crashing to death!
I close it quick to catch my breath.

Another beckons, it reels me in…
before I’m lured, before it’s cooked me,
this dangerous book has baited and hooked me!

It snatches me up and tries to escape
I could brace my legs against the door
or…

I could relax,
could stop yelling, “NO!”
I could simply sit back, I could just let go.

I could ride this book
far and free… Hmmm.
Should I let this story kidnap me? 

What about you?  What books have captured you, or what ONE book changed your life? 

Teeny tiny quick Writing Workout for you or your students:

What books have influenced you? 



Whether or not you join Bookprints, join the conversation here!  Inquiring minds want to know!

poem and drawing (c) April Halprin Wayland